Nola Rae

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

(born 1950) is a

mime artist A mime artist, or simply mime (from Greek , , "imitator, actor"), is a person who uses ''mime'' (also called ''pantomime'' outside of Britain), the acting out of a story through body motions without the use of speech, as a theatrical medium ...

Biography

Early life and education

Rae was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1949 and migrated to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

with her family in 1963. Originally hoping to become a dancer, at 16 she began training at the

Royal Ballet School The Royal Ballet School is a British school of classical ballet training founded in 1926 by the Anglo-Irish ballerina and choreographer Ninette de Valois. The school's aim is to train and educate outstanding classical ballet dancers, especially ...

in London and then danced professionally at Malmö Stadsteater and

Tivoli Garden The following is an overview of public housing estates on Tsing Yi, Hong Kong including Home Ownership Scheme (HOS), Private Sector Participation Scheme (PSPS), Flat-for-Sale Scheme (FFSS), Tenant Purchase Scheme (TPS) and Subsidised Sale F ...

's Pantomime Theatre in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

. However, realising that she might not succeed in ballet, she turned to mime and studied with

Marcel Marceau Marcel Marceau (; born Marcel Mangel; 22 March 1923 – 22 September 2007) was a French actor and mime artist most famous for his stage persona, "Bip the Clown". He referred to mime as the "art of silence", and he performed professionally worldw ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

.Noble, Will (2011)
Mime clown Nola Rae
, ''The Prague Post'', 27 July 2011, retrieved 2011-07-29

Career

She was a founder member of the French-based International Research Troupe Kiss, co-founded Friends Roadshow with

Jango Edwards Stanley Ted Edwards (April 15, 1950 – August 4, 2023), known professionally as Jango Edwards, was an American clown and entertainer who spent most of his career in Europe, primarily in France, Spain, the Netherlands, and England. Edwards' p ...

, and was a member of the

Bristol Old Vic Bristol Old Vic is a British theatre company based at the Theatre Royal, Bristol. The present company was established in 1946 as an offshoot of the Old Vic in London. It is associated with the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which became a f ...

Company. In 1974, she founded the London Mime Theatre with Matthew Ridout, with whom she has worked ever since. Nola and Joseph Seelig were the original instigators of the

London International Mime Festival The London International Mime Festival (LIMF) is an annual theatre event in London. Its directors, Joseph Seelig and Helen Lannaghan, are winners of the International Theatre Institute Award for Excellence. LIMF features live art, a new cir ...

, which is held in January each year, and has been running since 1977. Rae premiered her first solo show at Le Festival du Monde in Nancy in 1975. Since then she has created 12 full-length shows and toured the world. She combines mime, clowning, puppetry and dance and has performed in over 60 countries. A great lover of the works of

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

, she created ''Shakespeare the Works'' with John Mowat, where four of the Bard's tragedies were turned into comedies, and included a version of ''Hamlet'' for two hands. She later tackled ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', where the fairies were represented by puppet salad vegetables. In 1990, Rae radically changed her style and began to present full length comic dramas where one wordless character is developed over an evening. One example is ''Elizabeth’s Last Stand'', directed by

Simon McBurney Simon Montagu McBurney (born 25 August 1957) is an English actor, playwright, and theatrical director. He is the founder and artistic director of the Théâtre de Complicité, London. He has had roles in the films '' The Manchurian Candidate'' ...

. It explores the loneliness of an old woman when she develops delusions of grandeur and tries to recreate the court of Elizabeth I of England in her living room. This was followed in 1993 by a two-woman show with the contemporary dancer Sally Owen. Directed by Carlos Trafic, from Argentina, ''And the Ship Sailed On'' explored the clash of two women of different cultures who are forced to share a small cabin on a nightmarish voyage of immigration. In ''Mozart Preposteroso'' Rae presents a clown's fantasy on the life of a musical phenomenon. ''Exit Napoleon Pursued by Rabbits'' was inspired in part by Charlie Chaplin's ''

The Great Dictator ''The Great Dictator'' is a 1940 American anti-war political satire black comedy film written, directed, produced, scored by, and starring British comedian Charlie Chaplin, following the tradition of many of his other films. Having been the o ...

''. It deals with dangerous charisma and how to get it, following the transformation of a hobo into

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

and then

Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

.Peacock, Louise (2011) ''Serious Play: Modern Clown Performance'', Intellect, , p. 79 ''Home Made Shakespeare'' with the Swedish actor Lasse Äkerlund has her using her voice on stage for the first time. She also gives workshops, lecture demonstrations and master classes. Rae is also in demand as a director, her speciality being subverting tragedies, by turning them into clown plays. She began with ''The House of Bernarda Alba'' by Garcia Lorca, performed by the Swedish all-women clown group Teater Manjaña. They won the Swedish Humour prize for the funniest show of 1996. Other winners were Birgit Nilsson for her biography and Lee Evans who won the international humour prize. She has also directed ''Miss Julie'' by

August Strindberg Johan August Strindberg (, ; 22 January 184914 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter.Lane (1998), 1040. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than sixty p ...

for the same group, a hit at the 1998

Strindberg Festival Johan August Strindberg (, ; 22 January 184914 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter.Lane (1998), 1040. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than sixty pl ...

in Stockholm. The latest directing project in Sweden is ''Ben Hur'' set in an old people's home. Her directing work in Norway includes ''Doña Qu''ixote by Coby Omvlee and Ibsen's ''The Wild Duck'' for the Oslo Nye Teater. She also directed ''The Three Musketeers'' (the clown version) for Les Anges Perdus in Vienna 2006. Over the years, Rae has made numerous television appearances. They include a BBC Playhouse Special ''After You Hugo'', where she played a French dancer who impersonates the Russian ballerina

Anna Pavlova Anna Pavlovna Pavlova ( , rus, Анна Павловна Павлова ), born Anna Matveyevna Pavlova ( rus, Анна Матвеевна Павлова; – 23 January 1931), was a Russian prima ballerina of the late 19th and the early 20t ...

in variety theatre. She has been the subject of two documentaries : BBC Arena and Meridian Television’s The Pier.

Awards

Rae received a

Total Theatre Total may refer to: Mathematics * Total, the summation of a set of numbers * Total order, a partial order without incomparable pairs * Total relation, which may also mean ** connected relation (a binary relation in which any two elements are compa ...

Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999, the

Charlie Rivel Josep Andreu i Lasserre (April 23, 1896 – July 26, 1983), best known as Charlie Rivel, was an internationally known Catalan circus clown. He was born in Cubelles (Barcelona, Spain). His parents Pere Andreu Pausas (Catalan) and Marie-Louise ...

Award for Clowning from the Festival of Amandola; and was inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame in the United States in 2000. In 2008, Rae was awarded an

by the Queen in her New Year's Honours List for services to drama and to mime.Smith, Alistair (2007)
Kenyon, Squire and Lewis receive New Year Honours
, ''

The Stage ''The Stage'' is a British weekly newspaper and website covering the entertainment industry and particularly theatre. It was founded in 1880. It contains news, reviews, opinion, features, and recruitment advertising, mainly directed at those wh ...

'', 31 December 2007, retrieved 2011-07-29

References

External links

*http://www.nolarae.com/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Rae, Nola 1949 births Living people Australian mimes Members of the Order of the British Empire Australian expatriates in England Australian emigrants to England Entertainers from London People from Sydney